patterns of the seagrasses of Florida Bay can be explained by different resource 
acquisition strategies of the seagrass species. 
1992 
Kramer, P. A., P. K. Swart, H. L. Vacher, and T. Juster (1994) Controls on salinity in 
Florida Bay islands. Bull. Mar. Sci.. 54(3): 1078. 
[ABSTRACT ONLY.] Holocene mud islands found within Florida Bay often contain 
ephemeral ponds in their interior which are periodically flooded by either bay water 
during high tides and storms, or by meteoric water during seasonal rainfall. The 
salinity within these ponds, and the island sediments underlying the ponds, is thought to 
be controlled by the frequency and intensity of flooding, type of flooding, and intensity 
of evaporation. To better understand these controls, salinity was measured in ponds 
and in pore fluids taken from 15 islands across much of Florida Bay in February, 1992. 
In addition, one island, Cluett Key, was instrumented with pressure transducers to 
determine the frequency of tidal flooding. Although large variations in salinity exist 
between different islands (38 - 130 g kg' 1 ), the shape of the salinity profiles within 
each island was similar, often reaching a maximum between 60 and 80 cm depth from 
the surface. There appears to be no trend in the magnitude of an island's salinity with 
it's geographic location within Florida Bay, suggesting that rainfall gradients and 
salinity gradients within Bay waters are having little effect on an island's salinity. 
Based on this survey, we hypothesize that it is the flooding frequency of Bay waters 
over an island and thus the elevation of an island relative to Bay waters that controls 
the magnitude of it's salinity. Transducer data from Cluett Key support this scenario, 
and in fact show that the island is flooded daily by Bay waters during the highest tides 
of a month. 
1 992 
Kuta, K. G., and L. L. Richardson (1994) Distribution and frequency patterns of black band 
disease in the northern Florida Keys. Bull. Mar. Sci. . 54(3):1078. 
[ABSTRACT ONLY.] Black band disease is present throughout the coral reefs of the 
Florida Keys. The disease consists of a population of the cyanobacterium Phormidiurn 
corallyticum and associated microbial community, and is characterized by an active 
season which occurs during the warmer months when water temperature is at or above 
25°C. A field investigation was carried out during the 1992 active season to determine 
the distribution and frequency patterns of infected scleractinian coral colonies, and to 
support a statistical analysis of coral species which became infected. Three reefs were 
chosen for an in depth study - Algae Reef, Grecian Rocks, and Key Largo Dry Rocks. The 
reefs are patch and fringing reefs, and all are offshore from Key Largo in the Florida 
Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The study was carried out using both photo transects 
and 10 m radius quadrats (10 per site). Dispersion indices were used to determine the 
distribution pattern of the disease on each of the reefs. Distribution of black band 
occurrence was clumped. In areas of high incidence of the disease, colonies which had 
been infected in 1991 were observed to become reinfected in 1992. There were 
distinct differences in the coral species infected between the three study reefs. Most 
notably, on Algae Reef black band disease was absent from all Montastrea annularis, 
the coral reported to be most susceptible to black band. Infected M. annularis was found 
at both Grecian Rocks and Key Largo Dry Rocks. Also infected were colonies of M. 
cavernosa, Diploria strigosa, Colpophyllia natans and Colpophyllia breviserialis. 
1992 0 
Lapointe, B. E., and M. W. Clark (1992) Nutrient inputs from the watershed and coastal 
eutrophication in the Florida Keys. Estuares . 15(4):465-76. 
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